in order to salvation, must be plain and easy to be understood by the most simple and illiterate, it follows,

First, That it is repugnant to the wisdom of God to require any thing as necessary to be believed, which is dubious and obscure in Scripture, since that would be to propound that as a means for obtaining an end, which he knew to be insufficient to obtain it; it being certain that what is dubious and obscure in Scripture cannot afford us a certain knowledge of our duty.

Secondly: It also seems repugnant to the goodness of God to perplex and confound weak minds with such subtilties, for the knowledge of which he has not given them suitable qualifications; seeing, as St. Paul observes, "God accepteth according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not" (2 Cor. viii. 12). Now it is evident from the continual clashings of our most learned divines about these subtilties, that the illiterate can have no certain knowledge of the truth or falsehood of them.

Thirdly: It seemeth inconsistent with the justice and righteousness of God to require any man to believe what he does not, nor cannot, understand: for no man can be said to believe, that is, assent to, what he does not understand; because assent is an act of the understanding, and we must understand the meaning of every term in a proposition before we can assent to it or dissent from it; for words of which we do not understand the meaning, are the same to us as if they had no signification at all. righteous God puts upon no man the Egyptian task of making brick without straw, nor requires any thing of us in order to our salvation which we cannot perform; that being, in effect, to require impossible conditions of salvation from us. See this farther proved, Sermon iv. sec. 2, 3, 4, 5.

A

In fine, belief or disbelief can neither be a virtue or a crime in any one who uses the best means in his power of being informed. If a proposition is evident, we cannot avoid believing it; and where is the merit or piety of a necessary assent? If it is not evident, we cannot help rejecting it or doubting of it; and where is the crime of not performing impossibilities, or not believing what does not appear to us to be true? If I have done my best endeavour to know the mind of God revealed in Scripture, I have done all I could, and therefore all that God requires of me in order to that end: can, then, a good and gracious God be angry with me, or condemn me for my unwilling mistakes, when I have done all that was in my power to avoid them?

In fine, it is observable that the very nature of a prophet requires this-that he should be a person sent from God, and not speaking in his own, but God's name. Hence concerning the false prophets, God speaks thus: "I have not sent them, yet they run; I have not spoken unto them, yet they prophesy" (Jer.

xxiii. 21). And again, chap. xiv. 14, "Then the Lord said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name; I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake I unto them ; they prophesy unto you a false vision."

Hence, our blessed Lord having said, "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me;" he also adds (John vii. 17), "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself;" that is, whether I be a true or a false prophet. This being the established notion of a prophet, and our Saviour being that prophet which Moses told them should come after him, and which was promised to the Jews, he must perform that office, as other prophets did, by speaking, not in his own name, but in the name of him that sent him.

says,

Accordingly, during his prophetic office here on earth, he that "he spake not of himself, but as the Father that had sent him had given him a commandment, so he spake" (John xii. 49). And (chap. xiv. 24), "The word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me ;" and (ver. 31), "As the Father gave me a commandment, even so I do."

And, lastly, The prophetical revelations made to St. John, in the Apocalypse, are styled "the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass."

Now hence it follows, that the accusations of the Jews must be false, malicious and scandalous accusations, seeing he who came into the world as a prophet sent from God,-one speaking not in his own, but in his Father's name, and declaring that his doctrine was not his, but his that sent him,-could never say at the same time that he was the very God that sent him, that he spake not in his own, but in the name of God, and delivered not his own dootrine, but that of him that sent him; it being certain that the Supreme God could not be the person sending, and yet the person sent. He could not speak in the name of another, nor say his doctrine was not his.

Hence it is remarkable that in all those places in which the Jews accused him of blasphemy, and making himself God, or equal with God, or ascribing to himself what properly belonged to the great God alone, he never directly answers that he was God, or equal to him (although, if he were sent to preach that doctrine to the world, it is reasonable to expect upon these occasions he would have done it); but he ever speaks as one who waved that assertion.

For when the Scribes inquire, "Why doth this man speak blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but one, that is, God?" (Mark ii. 7), he doth not answer, as others do for him, that this proved

him to be God; but only saith; "The Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive (the temporal punishment) of sin ;" ascribing to himself that power, not as he was the Son of God, much less as being God of the same essence with the Father, but only as he was the Son of Man. Again, from these words (John v. 17), "My Father worketh hitherto"-works of providential care, goodness, and mercy; "and" these charitable actions "I work also." From these words, I say, of his calling God his Father in so peculiar a manner, (as he did, and had just cause to do, had he been only miraculously conceived in the Virgin's womb, and upon that account "the Son of God," Luke i. 25; "the Son of the Most High," ver. 32,) they invidiously infer (ver. 18) that he called God, Пarépa idov, that is, his Father, in such a proper sense as made him equal to God, as a son is to his father.

Now to this, Christ doth not answer as it might have been expected from one who was sent into the world to confirm that doctrine; to wit, that he had reason thus to call God his Father, as being of the same individual essence with him; but his answer contains many things wholly inconsistent with that doctrine.

For his reply is, that "he could do nothing of himself" (vers. 19, 20); that "the Father judgeth no man, but hath given all judgment to the Son" (ver. 22); and that "because he was the Son of Man" (ver. 27); that he "sought not his own will, but the will of the Father that sent him" (ver. 30); that "the Father which sent him," he was the person that "bore witness of him" (ver. 37); and that "he came not in his own, but in his Father's name" (ver. 43); and, lastly, "The works which his Father had given him [power] to do, bore witness of him, that the Father had sent him" (ver. 36). All which sayings are plainly inconsistent with an identity of essence, will and actions, in God the Father and the Son. In the 10th chapter they accuse him of blasphemy-not for saying (ver. 30), "I and my Father are one;" but, as Christ himself declares (ver. 36), because he said, "I am the Son of God." And yet, he being accused of blasphemy, "because he, being a man, made himself God," had reason to reply, had it been true, that, being of the same essence with the Father, by representing himself as God, he only told them the truth, whereas he proves himself to be only the Son of God, first, because the Father had "sanctified* and sent him into the world;" and yet it is absurd to say, he either sanctified or sent into the world his own numerical essence: and, secondly, because "he did the works of his Father" (ver. 37); to wit, by

* Dum ergo accipit sanctificationem a Patre, minor Patre est; minor autem patre consequenter est, sed Filius: Pater enim si fuisset, sanctificationem dedisset, non accepisset.-Novatianus de Trinitate, C. xxii.

virtue of that power which the Father had given him (John v. 36), and by the Spirit of his Father dwelling in him; for "he did them by the Spirit of God" (Matt. xii. 28); "by the finger of God" (Luke xi. 20); "by the Father in him, as he was in the apostles" (John xiv. 20); and, "who were in the Father and Son, as the Father was in the Son, and the Son in the Father" (John xvii. 22, 23).

Farther, it is remarkable that the Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament, seem plainly to speak of one who is called God and Lord in Scripture, and yet is inferior to, and derives his power from, another.

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For, to omit Gen. xix. 24, which by the Ante-Nicene fathers is generally interpreted of God the Father and the Son, this seems expressly to be contained in these words (Psalm xlv. 7, 8): Thy seat, O God, endureth for ever; the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre: thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." Now, that these words are applied to Christ, we learn from St. Paul, saying, 'But to the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom" (Heb. i. 8). And, secondly, this God hath another God, who is styled his God, and who hath anointed him with the oil of gladness above his fellows; for, saith the Baptist (John iii. 34), "God gave not the Spirit by measure unto him," as he did unto the other prophets. A like instance we have of two Lords in these words (Psalm cx. 1): "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." For these words, my Lord, our blessed Saviour himself declares, were spoken of Christ (Matt. xxii. 49). And the apostle represents him as a Lord who had all things put under him by a superior Lord, by saying, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I have made thy foes thy footstool: therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts ii. 36). And the apostle represents him as a Lord who had all things put under him by a superior Lord, by saying, "When he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest he is excepted which did put all things under him, that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. xv. 27, 28); from which words,

*

Just. M. Dial. cum Tryph., p. 277, et p. 357; et Euseb. Præp. Evan., Lib. vii. C. xii. p. 322, et Lib. xi. C. xiv. p. 532, hæc habet, Toy μerà avwτάτω Θεὸν διὰ τοῦ πρώτου κυρίου, τὸν δὲ τούτου δεύτερον διὰ τῆς δευτέρας ἀποφήνας προσηγορίας.

Irenæus,* Tertullian and Novatian, prove that Christ, at the end of the world, is to give up his kingdom, or his dominion received from him, unto God the Father.

Another evidence of the superiority of God the Father to our Lord Jesus Christ, ariseth from these words of St. Paul: "We know there is no other God but one; for though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many and lords many, yet to us, Christians, there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him" (1 Cor. viii. 4-6); where it is plainly said, first, that all Christians know that there is but one God. And,

Secondly, That that one God is God the Father. And,

Thirdly, That this God the Father is distinguished from our Lord Jesus Christ by this character: that he is God, où, "from whom are all things;" but our Lord is only he, di, "by whom are all things:" and that God the Father is the Christian's one God-Christ their one Lord. It is scarcely possible to say this more fully or more plainly than the apostle doth; and seeing here the apostle speaks of the Father in person, styling him the Christian's one God, he must style him that one person who hath emphatically, or by way of superiority, the Divine Nature. But of this I have given a fuller proof in my reply to Dr. Waterland, to which he hath yet returned no answer.

Thirdly: This also is evident from those places which say that such a thing was done by Jesus Christ, or such honour was conferred upon him, "to the glory of God the Father." "We are filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God" (Phil. i. 11); and that "God had exalted him, (who, being in the form of God, took upon him the form of a servant,) and given him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (chap. ii. 9—11).

And surely he who is Lord to the glory of God the Father, who "works in us the fruits of righteousness to the glory of God the Father," must be inferior to Him whose glory is the end, both of his exaltation to be Lord and of that righteousness he worketh in us. So, when St. Peter saith, "If a man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified, through Jesus Christ." For, seeing actions flow from the essences of them whose actions they are, where the singular essence is one and the same, the action

* Vide Interp. Patrum in locum. † Sect. iv. from p. 95 to p. 100.